It’s been a couple weeks since I deadlifted. It’s not how I like things to go, but with all the races lately, I’ve had to conserve my legs a little bit. That’s going to slow down now and through the summer, so I’ll be able to get back in the weights hard again.

That said, my deadlift doesn’t appear to have suffered from the relaxed tempo. I pulled this, 255 lbs, 8 times today on my last set, and didn’t feel like I was straining too hard to do it. I probably even quit a couple reps early, but I’m okay with that, since deadlift is one motion that can go terribly wrong if you let your form go to crap. It makes me excited for the next couple months, to see the next big jump in gains!

135, full lock.

I had planned on taking a couple weeks off from the weight room. The spring race schedule is just really tight, and to be fresh enough for the races, I can’t be blasting myself with deadlift workouts the day before. The plan had been to take this week and half of next off, and then get back hard on the weights and put my endurance training (bike and run) on cruise control for awhile. But that would’ve meant resting for two more days, and I really just don’t have the patience for that. My progress with overhead press has been a little unsatisfactory of late, so I felt like I couldn’t afford to let it slide for two weeks. Plus, when I don’t work out, I can’t eat as much (inner fat kid calling!), and I don’t sleep as well because of all the stored up energy.

So I put this up tonight. I remember a time when I used to dream of benching this weight. When I was a scrawny kid in high school (and for years after), I would’ve given just about anything to be able to use one of the big plates on either side of the bar. But I just wasn’t strong, I had no mass to work with, and was never taught how to train to get bigger or stronger, even when I wrestled. Now, I’m picking this up over my head, just because I wanted to.

Tonight, I put this up just because I could, after doing 3×10 and 2×5 working up to it. Then I drank some water, and hammered out 6×10 on lat pulldowns and 1-armed dumbbell overhead press. I’d only been at it for a half hour, so I decided on drop sets (80, 70, 60, 50, 40, 10 reps each) of easy bar rows, alternating (no rest) with sets of 20 decline situps with the bench cranked as high as it would go. I was burning pretty good at that point, but wasn’t satisfied, so I did drop sets of reverse curls (60, 50, 40, 30, 20, 10-15 reps each), supersetted with overhead tricep extensions, and alternating with sets of 15 double crunches.

That scratched the itch and burned the calories. I wasn’t destroyed when I left, but I’ll sleep well tonight. Which is good, because I have a 10k trail race tomorrow!

I tend to raise an eyebrow at the signs at most gyms that say you should never lift alone. They make it sound as if no sooner would you walk into a gym solo, than plates and bars would come crashing down around and on top of you like some sort of Wile E. Coyote cartoon. You can definitely lift alone, especially if you’ve been doing it long enough to know both the exercises you want to do, and your own limits. There are plenty of machines and lifts to do in the gym (read: dumbells) that require no assistance at all, provided you know how to perform the movement properly.

That said, there are also some things where you definitely need a spotter. Like this picture, where I was going for max reps on my last set of barbell bench press. The friendly stranger behind me stepped in for a spot when I asked, and for once, did it perfectly. A lot of guys you’ll ask for a spot will either help too much or too little, or worst of all, ignore you completely. This dude gave me some motivation and just a tiny bit of help to finish that last rep and get to exhaustion, which is precisely what I needed. So thanks, dude.

As an aside, in this picture (a still capture from a video from a cell phone… seriously), I’m benching 185 for 9 unassisted reps. I can remember the time when I looked at this kind of weight and thought there was no way I’d ever put it up. Feels good to clear those old mental hurdles.

I am so, so bad at pull ups. It’s not like they’re a mystery to me or anything, I’m just not that strong. Never really have been strong enough to do many of them. Three months ago I could do exactly one. Now, I’m up to about 7, even if they aren’t quite full-extension reps. But I’m getting better. I don’t have a firm goal just yet, but I’d love to be able to bang out sets of 10. There’s just not many things quite as manly as jumping up to a high bar and cranking out pull ups like it’s no big deal.

And no kipping, either. I have no desire to look like a dying fish.

In general, I’m not a big fan of isolation exercises. I quietly get a kick out of the dudes you always see at the gym doing 6 different kinds of curls, while their legs are like bean poles and their guts are twice the size of their chest. But calves are the exception. They’re immensely important to my running and my biking, and I have yet to find anything that works them quite as well as good ole’ fashioned calf raises.

Meet my new nemesis. This forty pound, oddly-shaped lump of low-grade steel is called a kettlebell. And last night, it kicked me squarely in the ass.

My friend Alicia is a crossfitter. And not just any crossfitter. She’s been at it for over a year solid, goes to competitions, and really lives the life. She’s managed to completely turn her health and fitness around, through a whole lot of dedication and hard work. She’s a badass, really. But I didn’t realize just how badass.

Because the other day, she posted on her Facebook about doing 100 kettlebell swings, unbroken, in 3:34 with a 35 pounder. Shoot, I think, I should be able to hack that. “Challenge accepted,” I told her.

Nevermind that I haven’t so much as looked sideways at a kettlebell in months. Or that I haven’t had any seriously hard conditioning (different from weight lifting) since my last race, December 1 of last year. No matter, 35 pounds isn’t that heavy, and I am A MAN, and so I shall do it! No 35 pound kettlebell available? No matter, I’ll round up. Because, after all, I am A MAN!

Wrong. I did my light overhead-press workout (it’s “de-load week”… more on that tomorrow), pumped up the music, took a swig of go-juice (BCAAs), and started the stopwatch. I should’ve known this wasn’t going to go as planned when I picked it up and thought man, that’s kinda heavy. But I started anyway. 10 reps in, I was feeling fine. No… big… deal… I thought between swings. 10 reps later, I was breathing too hard to think about anything but counting. 10 reps after that, I was standing, hands on hips, chest heaving, looking at the kettlebell laying on the floor.

“Holy crap. She did 100 of these things?!”

Part of the deal was, if I stopped, I had to do a 100 meter dash, 10 pull-ups, and 10 squats. Well, I can’t do 10 pull ups (yet… combination of me being too heavy and my lats being fairly pathetic). So I ran (roughly) 100 meters, did three really lousy and awkward pull-ups, and 10 bodyweight squats. Then 20 more swings. Then the “punishment” routine again. Switched to a 30 pound kettlebell, ego now thoroughly checked. 30 more swings. More punishment. 20 more swings and probably as many minutes after I started, I sprinted about 200 meters and called it good.

Dang crossfitters…

But now the challenge is laid out. For the next few weeks, I’ll be doing KB swings a couple times a week, until I can do 100 unbroken. Hopefully in less than 3:34. With a 35 (or greater) pound weight. Can’t go getting beat by a girl like that…